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- Malcolm Gladwell’s new book, “Outliers”, and the 10,000 hour ruleNovember 18
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All three of Malcolm Gladwell’s books pose a conundrum for the would-be reviewer. The conundrum is this: while the books have many virtues, none of the books make a watertight argument for their central claims. Many scientists, trained to respect standards of proof above all else, don’t like this style. A colleague I greatly respect told me he thought Gladwell’s previous book, Blink
, was “terrible”; it didn’t meet his standards of proof. Judge Richard Posner wrote a scathing review criticizing Blink on the same grounds.
Gladwell’s gift as a writer is not for justification and proof of his claims. What Gladwell does have is an extraordinary gift to use stories to explain abstract ideas in a way that is vivid and memorable, a way that brings those abstract ideas quickly to mind at later need. This shamanic gift is dangerous, for if you read his books credulously, it leaves you open to believing ideas that may be false. It’s also incredibly valuable, for what you learn you internalize deeply. In my opinion, this more than makes up f
- Biweekly links for 11/17/2008November 17
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Click here for all of my del.icio.us bookmarks.
- Biweekly links for 11/14/2008November 14
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- Jamendo
- Useful resource for finding Creative Commons music.
- Online Communities: The Tribalization of Business - O’Reilly Radar
- “Community for community’s sake: most businesses begin planning a community with traditional objectives (lower support costs, drive innovation, increase customer loyalty etc.). On the Social Web this is the equivalent of entering a personal relationship with an ulterior motive (which never works out quite right). Businesses should begin with the question, “how can I satisfy the needs of this community?”- and then follow the community’s lead. Be open to the unexpected.
In my experience this is one of the hardest things for companies to get behind and relegates this kind of “enlightened” community effort to either top-level leadership or skunk works development. Middle management is typically the most reluctant to deviate from standard practice and place a bet on community for the community’s sake.”
- “Community for community’s sake: most businesses begin planning a community with traditional objectives (lower support costs, drive innovation, increase customer loyalty etc.). On the Social Web this is the equivalent of entering a personal relationship with an ulterior motive (which never works out quite right). Businesses should begin with the question, “how can I satisfy the needs of this community?”- and then follow the community’s lead. Be open to the unexpected.
- scottberkun.com » Do we suck at the basics?
- “The longer I’m on this planet, the more I think the problem with everything is someone’s failure to get the basics right. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been invited to companies or to
- Jamendo
- Woolly quantum poetryNovember 10
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I love the BBC:
A North East writer has been given a grant of £2,000 to use sheep to create random poems, which also utilise the deepest workings of the universe.
The money has been provided by Northern Arts for Valerie Laws to create a new form of “random” literature.
Each of the animals has a word from a poem written on their backs and as they wander about the words take a new poetic form each time they come to rest.
But the exercise is not just an attempt to create living poems, it is also, according to the poet, an exercise in quantum mechanics.
The animals being sprayed belong to farmer Donald Slater of Whitehouse Farm Centre, Morpeth, in Northumberland.
Mrs Laws, 48, said: “I like the idea of using living sheep to create a living poem, and creating new work as they move around.
“Quantum mechanics is a branch of physics which a lot of people find hard to understand, as it seems to go against common sense.
“Randomness and uncertainty is at the centre of how the universe is put together, and is quite difficult for us as humans who rely on order.
“So I decided to explore randomness and some of the principles of quantum mechanics, through poetry, using the medium of sheep.”
Mrs Laws created a poem for the project, based on the traditional Japanese haiku form of poetry.
Each sheep had a word from the p
- Biweekly links for 11/10/2008November 10
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- Science in the open » My Bad…or how far should the open mindset go?
- Cameron Neylon on some of the challenges of being open.
- Wikinomics » Music Goes 2.0 — Sorry Paul Anka, You’re Not Invited
- Wiki-like collaboration for music: “Sonoma Wire Works has announced the launch of RiffWorks T4, an online music-collaboration application. With RiffWorks T4, musicians can record ideas, use drums and guitars, and add effects to quickly create songs. Most importantly, users do this online, and can easily collaborate with peers around the world — all for free! When finished, their tunes can be broadcast on RiffWorld.com.”
- Victoria Stodden: Benkler: We are collaborators, not knaves
- “[Benkler] sets out to show that there is a sea change happening in the study of organizational systems that far better reflects how we actually interact, organize, and operate. He explains that the collaborative movements we generally characterize as belonging to the new internet age (free and open source software, wikipedia) are really just the instantiation of a wider and pervasive, in fact completely natural a
- Science in the open » My Bad…or how far should the open mindset go?